


A confession much like Poetry

by ApparentlyAnnika



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: A tiny little bit of angst, Fluff, Forgotten Memories, M/M, Oscar Wilde - Freeform, They share one collective braincell and neither of them have it in this fic, crowley was raphael, hes mentioned - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-25
Updated: 2019-08-25
Packaged: 2020-09-26 09:17:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20387341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ApparentlyAnnika/pseuds/ApparentlyAnnika
Summary: Crowley confesses to Aziraphale, after such a long time, breathless and shaking and overwhelmed with emotion- only to be told Aziraphale had fallen in love with someone else a long, long time ago.





	A confession much like Poetry

How does one love? With great difficulty, Crowley suspects.

He’s loved Aziraphale for a long, long time. As long as he can remember, in fact. Something about Aziraphale calls to him, like a heavenly hymn, beaming him back up to heaven in a glow of golden white light. Everything about him, Crowley adores. His energy, his charisma. The way he cares about such little things, in the grand scheme of things, from old books to novelty teapots. Crowley can’t help but love way his brain works in such wondrous ways, finding something he enjoys and never letting it go, such as certain old bakeries in France, singlehandedly still running merely because of him, or the way he fell in love with the fashion of the 1800’s and hasn’t changed since.

The angel in question sits across from Crowley. He’s on the other side of the bookshop, shuffling through old, yellowed papers, muttering to himself. Crowley can hear few words actually said.

Aziraphale sits bolt upright, while still maintaining the keen eye contact with the paper. Crowley fears he’ll hurt his neck if he keeps it up, but nonetheless. He can watch, with such pristine intent, as Aziraphale flips the pages, one after another, so utterly careful as to not crumple, tear, or crease the ancient manuscript. 

“What are ya reading, Angel?”

Aziraphale turns to face Crowley. The way his eyes light up, the energy and excitement of sharing his interest with Crowley practically radiates of his body, like little strikes of lightning. They strike Crowley right in the chest.

Those eyes. Those stunning blue eyes.

“Why, my dear boy, come and see for yourself! It’s a first edition! One of our old friend’s manuscripts, I’d completely forgotten it was there. Fell between a shelf.”  
“Oh, whose?” Crowley asks, standing up from his seat on the windowsill, where he’d been basking in the sunlight. “Not another Shakespeare?”  
“Oh no,” Aziraphale corrects him, beaming with all the radiance of the sun. “It’s a Oscar Wilde. I believe you’re familiar.” 

With a smile like that, Crowley doesn’t need to sunbathe.

“Oh. Yes, uh, I’m familiar. I knew the fella. Lovely guy,” Crowley says. He remembers the man fondly, and felt his death to be quite unjust. Such is humanity, he supposes.   
“More your type, though. Tall. Wily. Uh, wrote a lot.”

“It’s a collection of poems,” Aziraphale explains. “Before his death, he gave me a bundle of them.”  
“I’d assume it was before his death. Not a lot of ghosts giving you manuscripts, I suppose.”  
“Listen to this one,” Aziraphale ignores his sarcasm, “Keats had lifted up his hymeneal curls from out the poppy-seeded wine,   
With ambrosial mouth had kissed my forehead, clasped the hand of noble love in mine.“  
“Ah. You and Wilde must have been closer than I thought.”  
“No! Nonsense, my dear, Oscar Wilde simply knew my love for writing and poetry. He gave them to me simply for safe keeping, I’m ashamed I let them fall into such ill conditions.”

Crowley sighs. “For a hundred or so years old, they look pretty good to me, Angel.”  
“A hundred and twenty-nine.”  
“Stellar. Look, Angel-“  
“What is thy name?' He said, 'My name is Love.' Then straight the first did turn himself to me and cried, 'He lieth, for his name is Shame, but I am Love, and I was wont to be alone in this fair garden, till he came unasked by night.“  
“It’s...” Crowley grasps the few words he can formulate. “It’s very beautiful. Meaningful.” He clears his throat. “It’s good.”  
“It is, isn’t it. The man sure had a way with words.”  
“Wish I was the same. Some things, even six thousand years won’t teach you.”  
“I suppose not.”

Crowley stands over Aziraphale’s shoulder. He stands in silence as Aziraphale flips through a few more poems.

“Crowley?”  
“Yes, Aziraphale?”  
“Have you ever been in love?”

The dark glasses cover the way his pupils pin, but they don’t cover the way his face lights up red. Aziraphale sits there, staring at him. Watching. Waiting for an answer. Does he already know the answer?   
Crowley doesn’t know.

“Uh, I...” Crowley stammers. “I think so, Angel.”  
“You think so?” Aziraphale asks, incredulously. Crowley can feel himself sweating.  
“I mean, like, yeah. As much love as a demon can feel, I’m sure. Of course, I’m sure it’s not as much as an... as an angel can feel.”  
“Really?” Aziraphale asks. His gaze softens. His shoulders drop, he breathes out.

“I wasn’t sure if demons could feel love.”

Crowley struggles for an answer.  
“I mean, what else could it be? It’s like, the opposite of hatred. It’s one of the best feelings in the world. It’s better than basking in the sunlight, better than driving the Bentley through an unkempt farmer’s field, better than waking up after a decade long nap. It’s got to be love.”

“Oh, Crowley,” Aziraphale gasps. He stands up, facing Crowley, standing so they face each other, nose to nose.   
Aziraphale’s face is a soft pink hue.

“I thought you said you were bad with words.”  
“Well, maybe I picked up a few pointers from the bookkeeper,” he says, sheepishly. “Definitely didn’t pick it up from hell.” 

“It’s like a stroll down a sunlit road.”  
“Holding hands with somebody you care about.”  
“Like a picnic on a lazy Sunday morning.”  
“Or gazing at the sky really late at night.”  
“Like a fire burning in two souls-“  
“Like the brightest stars in the sky.”

“Stars,” Aziraphale sighs.  
“Aziraphale. I gotta tell you this. Before the moment’s over.”

Aziraphale looks up at him. Their eyes meet. Crowley takes off his glasses with shaky hands, takes a deep breath-

“All of those things, Aziraphale... that’s how I feel. About you.”

Aziraphale is silent.

“I mean... since I met you, since that very first day in the garden. I... there was just something so special. About you. I didn’t know what it was, for maybe the first two thousand years. Maybe three. But. I did figure it out. I think...” He stammers. His chest feels shallow, and his heart seems to want to break out of his ribcage. His mouth is dry. It hurts to breathe. “I think I love you, Aziraphale.”

“Crowley.”

Aziraphale is shaky. He trembles with such emotion that it seems to leak out of him, so much so that Crowley swears he can see it seeping from his eyes- oh. Oh no, Crowley thinks.

Aziraphale is crying.

“I’m sorry, gosh, I didn’t mean to upset you-“  
“No, Crowley,” Aziraphale says, with a tone so soft and meek it feels like it might shatter. “You... you didn’t upset me.”  
“It must have been something I said.”  
“It’s nothing you said,” Aziraphale reassures him. “I just...”

The angel takes a moment to compose himself. Crowley fights the urge to wipe the tears from his eyes. Aziraphale does it himself, with the sleeve of his hundred and sixty year old jacket.

“It’s not you. It’s me,” Aziraphale starts, “I fell in love a long, long time ago too. It just... ended so badly. I hesitate to open up like that again.”  
“Aziraphale,” Crowley says, leading off like he’s going to say something else. But he doesn’t.   
“He was an angel. An archangel. He was so... so special, I loved him deeply. He loved me too, but when we...”  
“You don’t need to explain yourself, Angel. If it hurts...” Crowley says, “It’s not a story worth telling.”  
“It does hurt. But you deserve to know.”

The two sit on Aziraphale’s sofa. It’s so soft, and Crowley sinks into the plush pillows. Maybe something this soft will help soften the blow.

Aziraphale continues with his story.

“His name was Raphael.

He created the stars. The cosmos. I envied it so, the creativity and freedom he was allowed... I was just a principality, still am, I suppose. I could watch for ages. Just watching him create the galaxies. One night, he invited me to join him.”

Crowley listens with a burning feeling in his stomach. He feels like he’s heard this story before.

“We danced among the stars that night. Nobody but us. I don’t even think The Allmighty was watching. I like to believe she turned a blind eye.”  
“Like two dazzling stars in the sky,” Crowley says, wistfully.  
“Yes,” Aziraphale says. “We fell in love. And I was sure, that when earth was created, the big project finished, we could spend eternity together there. If not, of course, he recommended two stars he created side by side. He wanted me to check them out with him the next day, when the other Archangels were busy. He was always so mischievous, going against what others expected or wanted of him. Then...” Aziraphale hesitates, “he was gone. I never saw him again.”

“Do you think he left for the stars without you?”  
“I don’t know. I’ll probably never know.”  
“I’m... I’m sorry.”  
“Crowley. The only person I ever loved, truly loved, left me. I hope you understand my hesitation.”  
“I do. Do you think he truly left without you? Would Raphael do that to you?” Crowley asks. Something in him stings as he audibly says the name. Raphael. Why does he know that name?  
“I don’t think so. But I doubt myself. Gabriel told me he ran.” Tears begin to stream down Aziraphale’s cheeks again. This time, Crowley reaches out to dry them.  
“I don’t know if I’d trust Gabriel. He’s the biggest cunt I’ve ever met. And I live in literal hell, Angel.”

Crowley stops.  
“You don’t think he fell, do you?”  
Aziraphale stares up at Crowley. Something about the way he does makes a lightbulb in Crowley’s head go off. Maybe he’s got it.   
“I... I don’t know. You don’t know any demons that would have been like him, would you?”  
“I don’t know. From what you’ve told me... I mean, your memory gets a little blurry when you fall. I don’t remember much about the angel I was.”  
“He was beautiful. Tall, handsome,” Aziraphale sighs, “Wily, though. With the longest, bright red hair you’ve ever seen.”  
“That doesn’t help much. You’d be surprised how many redheads end up in hell,” Crowley says, gesturing to his own head.

He feels sad, but why should he? When this person is Aziraphale’s lover, why should he try and find him? It’s completely possible Raphael did run away to the cosmos. In which case, Crowley should hunt him down and beat the shit out of him for breaking Aziraphale’s heart.

“I feel like he would have found me again if he fell.”  
“He might not have remembered you,” Crowley says. “He might have forgotten who he was.”

Crowley leaves Aziraphale’s that night tired and distressed. When he arrives home, the air feels colder than it usually is. He doesn’t curse at his plants, he doesn’t take off his shoes and leave them at the door, he rather walks directly to his bed, tracking dirt and pebbles through his pristine halls, and collapses.

All of the emotion has been drained out of Crowley. It feels like he’s fallen from heaven’s grace yet again.

Aziraphale doesn’t love him.  
Aziraphale loves Raphael. A man who left him high and dry long before Crowley met him.   
And yet, Crowley holds no ill feelings towards Aziraphale. It’s strange, isn’t it? He thinks. Aziraphale should be over this by now, he’s had over six thousand years to forget. To move on. Crowley moved on from his entire angelic life in less than a millennia. But then again, he did have the ability to forget.

Forgetting. Raphael, the fire haired angel, may very well have fallen. His curiosity, his creativity, his unwillingness to conform, he would be cast out. He would fly through the clouds, seeing one last look at the dazzling night sky he created, as the ground rockets towards him, Hell swallowing him whole.

Just like how Crowley did.

Crowley sits bolt upright, breathing heavily. It feels like fifty pounds is pressed against his chest, suffocating him, like there’s hundreds of nails being driven through his skull, causing him to hold his head in pain, agony, regret.

It hits him like a brick wall. Like the angel he used to be slamming against the ground after the fall, breaking every bone in his mortal body.

Crowley used to be Raphael.

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first fic I’ve written for Good Omens. I haven’t participated in fan fiction since my wattpad days, do it was incredibly refreshing to write something with a new outlook and more experience.
> 
> The first Oscar Wilde quote is from the poem Flower of Love. The second is from the poem Two Loves.


End file.
